Portrayed as heroic defenders of rights and rapacious bloodsuckers, lawyers play an outsize role in American public life. How and why did that come to be? Come learn about the forgotten and often troubling roots of the United States’ distinctively lawyer-driven justice system in 19th-century struggles over the rise of capitalism and the quest for racial equality.

Amalia Kessler, MA ’96, PhD ’01, is the Lewis Talbot and Nadine Hearn Shelton Professor of International Legal Studies and a professor, by courtesy, of history. Her research has ranged broadly, including work that explores the intersections between law, market culture and process norms in both France and the United States. Her most recent book is entitled Inventing American Exceptionalism: The Origins of American Adversarial Legal Culture, 1800-1877. Before entering academia, she was a trial attorney in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.